Equipo Cinco - Media Campaign Project - Position Paper

Bill Boecklen, Edd White, Chris Fox, Nick Carruth



As the direction of our media campaign project, Equipo Cinco has chosen to team with the Blue Star Connection. This organization, an outgrowth of the Grand County Blues Society, has as its mission to bring music into the lives of children and young adults fighting very serious disease. The goal of Equipo Cinco is to raise awareness of and participation in this beautiful organization in the CU/Boulder community. The Blue Star Connection has strong support in many locales across the United States and even as far away as India. Still, the amount of good work the Blue Star Connection can accomplish is immense compared to its present level of impact. The progressive, socially involved CU/Boulder community is an ideal source of advocacy and encouragement for this important program. We feel with some extra promotion in this area, Boulder could be a substantial source of support for this benevolent undertaking.





We are four University of Colorado at Boulder students in WRTG 3020, Social Media and Civic Engagement, taught by Michael Zizzi. Our group, Equipo Cinco, consists of History major Bill Boecklen, French major Edd White, Psychology major Nick Carruth, and Physics major Chris Fox. When organizing the groups for this media campaign project, Professor Zizzi noticed that we all shared an interest in music. This quickly became the primary focus of our decision of how to engage the local community in an important issue. Bill’s past work with the Blue Star Connection led our group to choose this organization and its mission as an ideal music-related social cause to promote in the CU/Boulder community. Love of music for Edd, Nick, Chris and Bill is substantially deeper than your average appreciation of clever rhymes and catchy hooks. Music is something we consciously involve in our lives on a daily, if not hourly, basis. All four of us have instruments close at hand in our homes for entertainment and inspiration. Technology allows us to carry our muse wherever we go. A partnership with the Blue Star Connection was an easy choice to make. Working to bring music into the lives of young individuals waged in serious battles against disease is an opportunity to bring our love of music and community to a new level.


We will be pursuing a number of tactics to build this organization here in the CU/Boulder community. We will be directing friends, family and community to our blog, boulderbluestar.wordpress.com. This blog will encourage comments and suggestions about and participation in the Blue Star Connection. Participation includes: donating an instrument, donating a silent auction item, donating money, introducing a new Blue Star, and attending Blue Star Connection events and fundraisers. Our blog will also feature Blue Star-related videos and updates of upcoming local Blue Star events. Chris, Nick and Edd will hit the Pearl Street Mall busking for Blue Star awareness and donations. A local Blue Star Connection event on December 2nd, 2011 will be strongly supported and promoted. We are confident that our determination and hard work will result in an increased Blue Star Connection presence in the CU/Boulder community, and because of this, more children will face their hard battles armed with family, faith, medicine and music.